No More Freebies

Just a quick strategy quibble – In the third inning of today’s game, the Jays elected to walk Mike Napoli to face Sean Rodriguez. While the young 2B is struggling to hit the Mendoza line, that move gets a big ugh from me. More runs will score after the walk- there’s nowhere near enough of a difference between Napoli and Rodriguez. With two outs there’s no added benefit of setting up the double play, and it’s too wayyyy early in the game to be giving away baserunners.

Sure it worked out, but remember the other day against the Phillies? Charlie Manuel elected to walk Matt Stairs with two out to face Shannon Stewart. The result? Stairs came around to score and ended up being the winning run. And somewhere a much-maligned run expectancy chart smiled…

Buy hey, what do I know? I would also have said that having Brad Wilkerson lead off was absolutely batshit crazy, and he took Lackey yard in the first inning for the only run the Jays scored all game. Numbers suck. Who needs numbers? Anything you can’t tell via a firm handshake and a steely look into a players soul is not worth knowing. Grunt.